


give me a minute (to hold my girl)

by dreamsoverdeath (dheiress)



Series: crowded town or silent bed (pick a place to rest your head) [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bisexual Bucky, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Demisexual Steve, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, M/M, Peggy is awesome, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers: A Character Study, The Howlies got Their Sergeant and Captain Back, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 12:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18717199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dheiress/pseuds/dreamsoverdeath
Summary: He breaths. In…Out. In…out.  (Just like Bucky taught him during one of his asthma attacks.)“Peggy.”  In.“There’s something you must know.” Out.It’s past closing time and there are things Steve still has to tell her. He starts with the most important ones.In…“Bucky is still alive and I…,” Steve pauses, not knowing how to continue, “I’m still under the ice.”…Out.





	give me a minute (to hold my girl)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hold My Girl by George Ezra

 

Steve follows her steps. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two—

He stumbles after her and she laughs, a brilliant chime that he thought he wouldn’t hear again.

“You’re so bad at this, at dancing,” Peggy says. She’s wearing the red dress, the one that hugs her hips snugly, and her lips are redder and fuller than he’s ever seen it.

She’s so beautiful. Steve closes his eyes against the sunshine on her face.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

He has dreamt of this dance over and over again for so many years, he never thought he could actually have it outside his imagination. But now, she’s so beautiful and real, warm beneath his hands and so young. Steve feels himself choking with the words he wants to say to her.

 

(“Steve?” she asked when he walked in, 8:00 o’clock on the dot.

“You’re alive!” she exclaimed, laughing and crying at the same time. They fell into each other, amidst the noise of the crowded bar. Steve hugged her tight and wept like a child.)

 

He twirls her, a move he remembers Bucky making in 1934 but Steve is too small to mimic back then. She allows it, raising her arm with his and spinning her whole body, their fingers intertwining.

“That was much better,” she laughs. Steve feels his grin curling into a softer smile as he stares at her.

God, Peggy.

He pulls her to him, her chest against his, and takes each of her hands into each of his. Steve sways her, her heart beating fast, but not as fast as his. Placing his forehead unto hers, he could spend an eternity just like this, Steve breathes out, “Peggy, you’re the only woman I’ll ever love.”

She laughs again, shaking her head; her breath spreading across his face, giving warmth.

“You’re so dramatic, Steve.”

He could spend a lifetime with Peggy like this. Steve wants to, but—

He breaths.

In…out.

 

In…out.

 

(Just like Bucky taught him during one of his asthma attacks.)

 

“Peggy.”

 

In.

 

“There’s something you must know.”

 

Out.

 

It’s past closing time and there are things Steve still has to tell her. He starts with the most important ones.

 

In…

 

“Bucky is still alive and I…,” Steve pauses, not knowing how to continue, “I’m still under the ice.”

 

…Out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Here is the truth Steve has realized in the past decade:

He loves both of them, Peggy and Bucky, in equal but quite different ways. Not in the ways most people would understand, especially not in the ways most people would approve of.

Peggy is his sun, a bright star lighting up his world and showing him his way. He has lived in a world without her and that world proved to be dark and cold and Steve almost lost his way in it.

Bucky is his air, something he almost took for granted until it was lost and he suddenly _couldn’t breathe—_

 

* * *

 

 

They find Bucky in Siberia.

Colonel Philipps and Peggy have seized Armin Zola, negating all the deals he has for Project Paperclip but not before Zola manages to scatter all his laboratory assistants and test subjects into different countries for ‘assimilation’. He split the Commandos into two teams for the other two in the three possible locations Zola may have hidden Bucky. Steve chooses Siberia for himself. The timeline is wrong for Siberia, of course. From The Folder, Bucky is only moved into this snow wasteland around the late 60’s but Steve gut tells him to check this place first and foremost.

The Siberian laboratory in the 1940’s is not the metal fortress that can withstand a nuclear war Steve remembers almost destroying in 2016. For one, it’s smaller and is only made to withstand the cold without keeping the facility warm.

“Shit,” Howard curses behind him and Steve is hit with a dizzying sense of déjà vu. He swallows down the bile in his throat, turning to where Howard is looking.

 

It’s the chamber.

 

Steve closes his eyes.

 

(Inside the ice tank, face framed by the small circular window like a cruel photo, sleeps Bucky.)

 

“Captain Rogers,” Peggy’s voice crackles in his ear, pulling him back from the dark fugue of malice for Hydra. Steve presses his earphone against his ear, its audio quality nothing like the ones from 2019.

“Agent Carter,” he confirms.

“I’ve found the scientists and the laboratory technicians,” she says, her frustration palpable even through the thick static, “They’ve all taken the pill way before we got here, Steve.”

“I’ll hack into their server,” she continues.

“We’ve found Bucky, Peggy.”

She pauses and then says gently, “Oh. Oh, Steve. I am so sorry.”

Steve shakes his head, though she couldn’t have seen it, “It’s not your fault, Peggy. It never was.”

“Oh god,” she cries from the earpiece, “these are almost all the scientists from Project Paperclip.”

“I’m sorry, Peggy. I know how much the Project meant to you.”

He hears her breathing heavily, angrily.

“Colonel Philipps and I,” she starts in a clipped tone, “We’ll be talking about that Project after this mission. Over.”

 

“Cap,” Howard calls from over the controls. Steve rushes to him, “Can you get him out safely?”

Howard hovers over the buttons and switches, he clucks his tongue at Steve, “Safely? Yes. Painlessly? No. It will probably better if we can transfer him to the base first, I don’t like the look of those cables behind his head and those wired into his chest.”

Steve bites the insides of his cheek. He remembers Bucky’s Folder, remembers Bucky confessing once: “…it hurts the most after the ice, I can feel things more clearly at first—”

Steve nods at Howards, grip tightening on the edge of the console box. Despite the years, he never really got over the urge to punch Zola and all of the Hydra dicks behind the creation of the Winter Soldier.

“Let’s do it properly, Stark.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Dernier and Jones are sniffing, Falsworth is trying to pretend he’s not crying while Morita and Dugan are openly crying into their sleeves. Bucky is laughing at all of them.

The commandos are all huddled around Bucky’s bed and Steve takes a moment to look at each of them. Dugan’s beard threatens to swallow the entirety of his face, there’s mud and probably blood around the collar of Falsworth’s uniform, Dernier has a burnt patch of hair near his temples, Jones has his right arm in a cast and Morita’s hair is almost shoulder length now. None of them has showered in the past three days, he thinks.

They’re real, not the black and white pictures in an elementary history book.

Bucky’s eyes slides to him and Steve can see the shadows beneath his eyes, the worn edges of his lips. It’ll take a while for the kid from Brooklyn Steve has loved to come back fully.

But he will, he always does.

“What are you doing standing in the doorway like that, you punk?” Bucky calls, “Come in here.”

Steve laughs, comes into the space the Commandos have opened in their circle for him and ruffles Bucky’s hair. Bucky swats his hand away with another laugh.

He eyes Bucky, as subtly as he can, all of his cuts and bruises has healed and the only thing that will physically tell anyone something has happened to Bucky is his left arm. Steve feels his chest tightening, even in this timeline, he couldn’t manage to save all of Bucky.

 

(“Anyone else feeling we’ve suddenly become lampshades?”

“Oh, shut your trap, Timothy. Let them have their moment.”)

 

Bucky looks at Steve too, taking in the washed hair and complete uniform, and putting two and two together in the way Steve has hoped he would.

“Meeting with the big wigs?” Bucky asks casually. Steve nods.

“Jesus, they can’t even give you a few days off before hauling you into another one of their boring ass meetings, can they?”

Steve laughs, “Well you know them, Buck.”

“At least you have Agent Carter to keep you company, right?”

He smiles at Bucky.

“How long will this meeting take,” Bucky asks.

“Not too long, you’ll be seeing me again after a few days.”

Bucky shakes his head with a wry grin and open his arm, “Come here, punk.”

Steve slides forward and hugs him tightly, “Don’t do anything stupid, Buck.”

He laughs, a wet choked sound, “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

Around them, their team laughs, a collection of fondly exasperated chuckles that Steve didn’t think he will hear again.

 

“I’ll miss you, Buck.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“So,” Howard says, eyeing Steve and the Shield in his lap, “time travel, huh?”

Steve stares at the figure in the bed, which Peggy is tucking tenderly under heavy blankets.

“Yup,” he confirms. The Shield is heavy on his lap. Steve thinks of it, almost buried into oblivion by the ice, along with the man that wielded it. Is the man really important? Or will it be enough as long as the Shield is carried?

The doctors say it will be a few days before he fully wakes up.

“So, who figured it out?” Stark asks, eyes volleying between the Steve in front of him and the blond man sleeping soundly on the bed. “Please don’t tell me it’s the Russians.”

“No,” Steve chuckles, “No. It was your son, Howard.”

Stark looks at Steve fully.

“I have a son?” he asks, glee and awe slowly brightening his eyes. “How is he?”

Steve smiles and if it’s a little sad, no one can blame him for it.

“You have a wonderful son, Howard. Tell him that for me when you two finally meet, yeah?”

(Peggy slides her fingers against the cheeks’ of this timeline’s Steve Rogers. He averts his eyes and tightens his grip on the Shield.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve kisses each of Peggy’s knuckles.

“Thank you for the dance, Pegs,” he whispers against her skin. She opens her hands and turns them to cradle his face, bringing it closer to hers. She brushes her lips against the corner of his mouth in a soft kiss that warms Steve’s whole body.

“No,” she breathes, “thank _you_ , Steve. Thank you for giving our story a much better ending.”

Steve closes his eyes, presses his cheek against hers. He’s feeling that familiar pull now.

He kisses her one last time.

Steve pushes the button in his palm.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Here is the truth Steve has realized in the company of the faces from his past:

It is a plain and simple truth. Steve had known what it was like to live in a world without Bucky, without Peggy, without the little family he had created here in the beginnings of SHIELD.

It wasn’t like living at all.

He couldn’t possibly let himself go through that again. He cannot, would not, hurt himself, not even a version of himself from another timeline, like that because he knows exactly what it feels like.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky walks into the apartment, flicks the lights on and, for a second, becomes completely bewildered.

“We, we left you in the nursing home,” he gapes at Steve.

Steve laughs, a full throated sound he didn’t know he could still do.

“Just because I look like this, you thought I can’t run?” He peels off the face mask Natasha loves, _loved_ , using in her missions. Steve throws the old man’s mask away, “Christ, you and Sam were so slow, I’ve been waiting here for an hour. Besides I’m not registered in that nursing home.”'

Bucky stares at the mask, “Will you even tell the truth if I ask where you got the time to find that mask and I don’t know pull the whole ‘Oh Bucky, I’m retiring please help Sam in his Captain America role—oh but wait Buck I was just kidding just wanted to mess with the both of you’ thing?”

Steve laughs again and Bucky shakes his head in fond exasperation, “You told me you were going to marry her.”

“I probably did, just not me-me.”

Bucky shakes his head again, stares at Steve and laughs and laughs and laughs, “Steve you fucking punk, come here.”

He opens his arms and Steve falls into the hug, both of them laughing until the tears have dried from their eyes.

 

Steve breathes in.

 

“I’m home, Buck.”

 

“Yeah, welcome back to the future, you stupid punk.”

 

…and out.

**Author's Note:**

> I finally watched Endgame! And as you can see, I. Have. Conflicting. Feelings. About. It.
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> Thank you for reading through this story! Feedbacks are very welcome, especially if you can help me with my tenses because time is weird and I don't really get it.


End file.
